CINCINNATI — A former chemistry student was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years in prison for plotting to behead a U.S. military veteran and attack a police station in support of the Islamic State group.
Munir Abdulkader, 22, apologized in court after his attorney emphasized that he had no criminal history and was known in his suburban West Chester Township community as kind and thoughtful — before being influenced by an FBI confidential informant as well as Junaid Hussain, an Islamic State group recruiter who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Syria last year.
“He’s got Hussain in one ear and he’s got the informant in the other,” attorney Richard Smith-Monahan told U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett.
Timothy Mangan, an assistant U.S. attorney, said Abdulkader had pledged allegiance to a terrorist organization known for barbaric acts. Authorities said Hussain helped identify a U.S. military employee for Abdulkader to kidnap at home and behead while making a propaganda video. The plot then called for him to attack a police station with explosives and a gun, Mangan said.
“They were intentionally targeting the people who are trying to protect us,” said Mangan, calling it one of the “most significant” Islamic State group-related plots against the U.S. homeland.
Read the whole story from the Military Times.
Featured image courtesy of Cincinnati Enquirer.
